AIG disclosed Sunday the names of banks and entities that received a total of $105 billion of its bailout payments made from September through December. Some of the leading recipients of American taxpayer money are France's Societe Generale, $11.9 billion; Deutsche Bank of Germany, $11.8 billion; and Barclays of Britain, $8.5 billion.

Kind of speaks volumes on who's in power now and how they're to fix Bush's left over mistakes. Sounds like we have a bunch more inept people running in circles. If they can't run 1 business like AGI how do they ever going to run a government. I guess they need to go back to school and learn a little more about evolution and global warming.

"Thank you for helping my neighbors with their mortgage payments. You know, the ones who live down the street who in the good times refinanced their house several times and bought SUV's, ATV's, RV's, a pool, three HDTV's, an X-Box, two Wave Runners, new flooring for their home, an enlarged patio, and a Harley. Also, I was wondering, since I am paying my mortgage and theirs, could you arrange for me to borrow the Harley now and then?

P.S. They also need help with their credit cards, when do you want me to start making those payments?P.P.S. I almost forgot - they didn't file their income tax return this year. Should I go ahead and file for them or will you be appointing them to cabinet posts?"

I think the economy is being helped now, but its not like flicking a light switch, it took time to get this bad & it still will get worse in some areas. Its going to take some time. It just strikes me funny that in the 80S recession no big stink was raised because it was for a large part what was considered dirty industry that was hurt. Now that it effects wall st. & banks, & then on down to main st. it`s suddenly a big deal. Those dirty industries in that rust belt employed a lot of tax paying people & made a lot in this country. Maybe thats what was meant by trickle down.

AIG was bailed out because they're a GIGANTIC insurance company and, if they defaulted on their contracts, it would be a lot like banks pulling a "Bernie Madoff" on their depositors (not their shareholders, who lost BIG) -- the tsunami wave in the banking/insurance biz would be devastating. "Confidence" in "contract" (which is just the legal name for a promise to do something) would be undermined in a very big way. And we all know that restoring "confidence" is what nearly everybody has been talking about as the economy has been heading south.

But here, the contracts they're "honoring" are those with the execs and former execs in their investment branch, that is, the very people who had a major hand in putting this whole economy in the ditch last September. So few people, including I, have much sympathy for the promises in those contracts. And it is true that, if AIG had filed for bankruptcy, they wouldn't be honored by the Bankruptcy Court.

Does this sound a little familiar? Because "restructuring" union contracts was one of the arguments for allowing GM and Chrysler to go down last December. They'd have to file for Chapter 11 Reorganization and all the "executory" (i.e., unfinished) contracts would be on the table for restructuring. The unions would have to take an involuntary "haircut."

But what about this idea of "the contract" as "sacrosanct?" If union contracts, and bonus contracts, should be rewritten, what about, for example, mortgage contracts? What about the "sanctity" of the insurance contracts which AIG was bailed out to save in the first place? (And yes, some of those "insureds" were foreign gov'ts.)

Our Government has doled out Trillions of dollars and the Federal Reserve is now buying our own debt. The feigned outrage over what amounts to toll money is nothing more than a famous game of Three-card Monte performed by the biggest con men on the planet, your Congress.

AIG is contractually obligated to pay a total of about $165 million of previously awarded "retention pay"........

170 million divided by 1 trillion = 0.00017

So, to put it in perspective :

Ten thousand times 0.00017 = 1.70

If you had 10,000 dollars of cold hard cash in hand, would you really be worried about what happened to a dollar thirty seven?

Black_And_Blue wrote:The thieves of Liberty are depending on your ignorance.

Wow! I couldn't have said it better myself. They want to keep up us stupid and uninformed and have destroyed the educational system to achieve that goal. It's obvious to anyone willing to "look behind the curtain" and think for themselves. Lisa

I`m sure there are plenty of other states that will take that money, except she talks like Alaska is a territory rather than a state. Sounds to me like she wants the money but with no strings attached. Soccer stadiums for every hamlet.